A Coldness in the Blood

by Fred Saberhagen

  Maule briefly considered, and then rejected, the idea of placing Dolores and Andy, under the protection of Joe Keogh and his helpers, in the safest house or apartment that could be found in the Chicago area. Such a passive strategy ran counter to his own deepest instincts.

  There were also possibilities in a certain charitable refuge, located in one of the city’s grimmer neighborhoods, the branch of an organization fanatically devoted to the salvation of the poor. The director of the local chapter was a fervent and reliable friend of Matthew Maule, who had helped him deal with certain monstrous difficulties brought on by a wayward client, and would certainly shelter a couple of fugitives if Matthew Maule should ask it—but the more Maule thought about it, the less inclined he was to choose that route. It would be better, his instincts urged, if the pair could get away from Chicago altogether for a time.

  The couple were now very near Andy’s own apartment, and it seemed obvious that they were heading there. Maule was airborne again, when another small form came fluttering near his own bat-body, and he tensed; but in a moment he had realized that it was only Connie.

  She stayed near him while, in a few terse words, he told her something of what he had discovered about the Crocodile.

  In twittering speech she wondered: “You still say this Sobek cannot be a god?”

  “I still say that!”

  Now their two small furry forms hung side by side upon a low-voltage power line, feeling the sixty-cycle thrum through insulated feet.

  Connie attempted to offer counsel. “You say he suggested that you bring him heads? Like Lambert’s for instance?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, Vlad, possibly he would accept lesser tokens—ears, noses, something of the kind—you once told me it was so in your old breathing days, when you fought the Turk, and sent back trophies to your king.”

  Maule managed to make his tiny bat-voice growl. “Be assured that I will never send that monster any trophies. I will hand him no head—unless possibly his own.”

  Andy and Dolly were still walking quiet residential streets. In the weariness that was steadily overtaking them, each block now took a little longer than the one before.

  She was saying: “And I thought my Gramp was only delirious. Well, now I know better. Crazy in his way he may have been, but not delirious. And not as crazy as his partners and their playmates.”

  Andy said: “We’ve got to decide where we’re going.” Though really, to judge by the route that they were following, it seemed that decision had already been made.

  She shook her head. “Not back to my place, I told you I can’t go there. They know where I live, and who I am. Damn that Dickon, anyway! He set us up for that!”

  “Yeah, I expect he did. So we’re going to my place. They didn’t know my name, or where I live.” At least he could hope the survivors of the nightmare fight were still in ignorance, though crazy Dickon knew who Andy was, and who his father was as well.

  Everything considered, Andy just wasn’t prepared to face his parents yet.

  He could also hope that the surviving villains who had fled the building would be so terrified of Uncle Matt that they might be running yet—or flying. Andy could not convince himself that he had not, less than an hour ago, seen live human bodies turn into foggy ghosts and soar up shrieking through the air.

  The couple had reached a corner about equally distant from Andy’s apartment and Dolly’s, when she looked up to check a street sign and slowed her dragging progress to a halt. “Andy, I’ve got to go to my car first, and get some stuff out of the trunk. It’s parked a couple blocks over this way—that was the nearest space I could find to my apartment.”

  In a couple of minutes they were standing in front of Dolly’s old car, one in a solid curb-line of vehicles, most of them in considerably better shape than hers. She swore wearily under her breath when she saw that her right front tire had now gone flat. Then the corners of her mouth turned up. “If it ain’t gonna start and it ain’t gonna run, no use worrying about the tires.”

  Andy stood by while she pulled out keys and quickly extracted a few things from the glove compartment and the trunk. The chief burden she took on was a heavy-looking backpack.

  “Good-bye, Old Paint,” she told the auto as she slammed the trunk lid down. “I leave you to the city of Chicago.”

  The pack did seem to weigh Dolly down somewhat, especially after the exercise they had already been through, and Andy volunteered to carry it. Dolly accepted the offer without argument.

  Walking the few remaining blocks, they discussed their prospects of finding a safe refuge.

  Andy was trying to think beyond the next few hours. “You were talking about train tickets. When are they good for?”

  “Tomorrow. The Southwest Chief leaves from Union Station, wherever that is, about four o’clock in the afternoon. The train goes all the way to Los Angeles; I’m getting off at Albuquerque.”

  “I’m getting on the train with you?” His tone made it something of a question.

  “After tonight, I won’t say no to that. Provided we both live until tomorrow afternoon.” After a pause she added: “Right now I’m not going anywhere alone.”

  As soon as they were inside Andy’s place, with the door locked, he slumped with relief. It simplified matters that neither of his housemates had yet returned.

  Before doing anything else he went through all the rooms, making sure all the windows were locked, or latched in their usual summer position of halfway open, and all the shades were down. Switching on lights as he moved, he had to look in all the closets and under all the beds. That might be irrational, but so was much else that had happened in the last few hours.

  After following the couple to Andy’s apartment, Maule shooed Connie away, and then examined the place as thoroughly as he could while being constrained to remain outside. He had never been invited into this particular dwelling place, and anyway he thought it would probably not be a good idea for him to confront Andy again just now.

  So Maule contented himself with peering into every window of the apartment (as well as he could, while Andy was lowering the shades), listening carefully, and sniffing, metaphorically, for the psychic traces of malignant vampires, or worse. It was reassuring to be able to detect no sign that any enemy had been in the vicinity. Not even Dickon, as far as Maule could tell.

  Presently, reestablished in man-form, perched in a sizable crotch twenty feet up a large tree, he got out his cell phone again.

  A better means of protection might have been devised for the endangered young people, given time. But as matters actually stood, it seemed best to simply encourage her to set out on her train trip—and to arrange for Andy to go with her, if that proved feasible. Protecting the two of them would be much easier if they were together. And if the enemy did not know where to find them, that would be best of all.

  Having completed his rituals of security, Andy went into the kitchen and stood looking at the apartment’s one telephone where it hung on the wall. To Dolly, who had followed him, he said: “I’m going to have to call my folks—unless you want to go first? Anyone you have to call?”

  The young woman shook her head. “Grandpa was all the folks I had. What’re you going to tell your family?”

  “First, warn them about Dickon—somehow he knew my dad’s name, who he was. Second, that I’m going out of town for a while. I have to tell ’em that much.”

  “They’ll want to know why you’re going, and where … won’t they?”

  Andy just shook his head. He took down the phone, then a moment later hung it back on the wall again. He just stood there with his hand holding the receiver in place. As soon as Mom or Dad came on the line, he would have to try to tell them something about Uncle Matt, or give them some other explanation for his leaving town. He couldn’t imagine what that was going to be.

  Sometimes, if you delayed a little, a knotty problem was solved for you. The phone rang, with his hand still on it. When he lifted the
instrument, and heard the urgency in his father’s voice, he began a stumbling preamble to a revelation, but was relieved of the burden of trying to finish.

  “Are you all right, son?”

  “I’m fine, just a scratch or two.” He didn’t mention the way his twisted arm still ached, or how his hand was visibly shaking, holding the phone.

  “The girl who was with you, what about her?”

  “She’s all right too. We were in Old Town, and—and—how did you know about her?”

  Consternation showed on the face of Dolly, who was listening intently to Andy’s side of the conversation. She backed away slowly, fists clenched.

  The voice on the phone was so tense it sounded unfamiliar. His father said: “I’ve just been talking with Uncle Matt.”

  “Oh.” The world around Andy seemed to be making less sense with every moment. “Dad, I saw—I saw him there. Where we were. He was—he—”

  “Yes, I know what he was doing. He saw you too. He’s just been telling me about it.”

  That brought Andy’s half-planned revelation to a full stop. “What did he say?”

  “Enough. Listen, son, this problem isn’t over. You understand that? Does the girl understand that?”

  “I do. She does. Some of the people who attacked us got away, and—”

  “Right. Now, this is vital. Whatever Uncle Matt told you to do, you have to do it. We can trust him in this kind of thing, Andy. We not only can, we have to.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “I do. Look, Andy, I know all about what happened tonight, and I know what you saw, just before you left that place. That had to be a hell of a shock, coming on top of everything else.”

  “Yes. Uncle Matt …”

  “Remember, son, I’ve known Uncle Matt longer than I’ve known you.”

  “Dad, I don’t think you understand. He was—what I saw him doing was—”

  “Drinking blood, I know, he’s told me all about it.” His father sounded worried, but certainly not destroyed. For him the drinking of the blood had been no earthshaking revelation. “I wish to hell I could have kept you … away from this kind of thing. Too late now to worry about that. Point is, you’re damned lucky he was there, and you’re alive. You say Dolores Flamel is unhurt. And she’s right there with you now?”

  “She’s okay. She’s here with me.” Dolores was still watching and listening, her expression frozen in silent fear and dismay, her fists still clenched. Now she drew slightly closer, and Andy tilted the receiver a little away from his ear, figuring she had a right to hear as well.

  His father’s voice came through clearly. “Great! The two of you have to stick together. Now, you’re getting on the train with her, right? Actually the train should be ideal.”

  “Dad, how the hell do you know about the train?”

  Dolores was staring at him, her expression beyond astonishment. The voice on the phone said: “Trust me, Andy, I’ll explain it all later. Or I’ll try. Are you with me?”

  “I guess so. Dad …”

  And his father reiterated what seemed incredible orders. “If you see Uncle Matt again, and you probably will, do exactly what he tells you. I don’t want to scare you, kid, but that’s your best chance of getting through this alive. Yours and the girl’s.”

  “I’m scared enough already, we almost died back there. Dad—”

  “And I realize the scariest part must have been what you saw, afterwards. Well. Sometimes he does things that seem to us—unbelievable. But … he knows what he’s doing. Oh, one more thing: better not call home, not for a while. If the cops can tie you to what happened tonight, our phone may be tapped. It isn’t yet, as far as I can tell. I’ll be in touch with you.”

  “How, Dad?”

  But the the dial tone was already buzzing in Andy’s ear.

  ~ 13 ~

  As soon as Andy hung up the phone, Dolly seized him by the arm. “What’s your father going to do?”

  “He didn’t tell me. But he knows what happened, just about as well as we do—don’t ask me how—and he doesn’t want the cops involved.”

  “He doesn’t? Why not?”

  “He didn’t tell me that, either.” If Joe Keogh knew the deadly truth regarding Uncle Matt, that could be reason enough to keep them out. “I believe him, though.”

  For a few moments Dolly digested this in silence. Then she backed up to one of the kitchen chairs and let herself drop into it. “You said we had help getting out of that place.”

  “We sure did.”

  “From where I was, stuck back in a corner, I couldn’t see much. I could just hear that awful … but it couldn’t have been your father who helped us, could it? Otherwise you wouldn’t have had to phone him.”

  Andy had pulled up another kitchen chair, and now he let himself sit down. His body felt like an old man’s. “Actually it was my Uncle Matt who got us out.” When Dolly stared at him, he added: “Yep. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s wizard.”

  “He and who else?”

  “He was the only one I saw there who was on our side. The famous Matthew Maule.”

  Now she looked totally lost, and who could blame her? Her voice went tiny again. “Every time someone asks you for a name, do you come up with Matthew Maule? Is that the only name you know?”

  “Just the only famous one, I guess. But this time I mean it. He, my uncle, was really the one who got us out. All by himself.” He paused. “I’m not sure of all the details, but I know some people got killed in the process.”

  “From what I saw, what I heard, I can well believe that. For one thing, I heard a shot.”

  “Me too. I thought it hit Uncle Matt. But I guess it didn’t do him much harm.” Andy closed his eyes and wearily rubbed his forehead. “Look, Dolly, maybe it’ll take me ten minutes to tell you everything I know about my uncle, which isn’t much. But first I’m going to take a shower, get some of the stink of that place off me. And the blood. You can shower too, we’ve got two bathrooms. Then we’ll sit down and talk.”

  “I can go along with that.” Painfully she heaved herself up out of her chair. Her body moved like that of an old woman, fit companion for his old man.

  Dolly was badly in need of a change of clothes. Andy’s own garments were all much too big, but one of his housemates was on the small side. Silently pledging restitution later, if he should manage to live that long, Andy raided the fellow’s bureau and closet, finding a couple of shirts and a pair of shorts that looked as if they might fit a woman of her size.

  Then Andy retreated to the shower adjoining his own room. On emerging from the bath he put on clean clothes, throwing his torn jeans in the trash. He also replaced his sandals with gym shoes, which he thought would be more suitable for traveling—and for running for his life, if it came to that again.

  He even shaved, to complete the tune-up, before returning to the common room—where, a few moments later, he was brought to a stunned halt on seeing Dolly emerge from the other bathroom. As Andy had expected, she was now fully if somewhat oddly clad in borrowed garments, with her sleeves rolled up, and her hair turbaned in a towel. But under her right arm the short girl was carrying what could only be a sawed-off shotgun. Some good hand with a hacksaw had neatly amputated most of the weapon’s length and a good portion of its weight. Just ahead of the wooden stock and trigger guard, twin barrels terminated abruptly in bright and slightly jagged circles.

  Andy had been about to remark that he was hungry, but all thoughts of food were driven from his mind. “What the hell is that?”

  Her eyes flared as if she had been waiting for the question. “Just what it looks like. Twelve gauge, and you better believe it’s loaded. Next time those people come within reach, I’m going to be ready.”

  After a moment Dolly added: “I thought I ought to bring some protection, coming to the big bad city. Even before my grandpa warned me.” Then she went off in a delayed reaction of near-hysterical laughter. After a moment, Andy joined in.

  Still giggl
ing, both of them lurching along the border of hysteria, they made their way back to the kitchen and sat down, Dolly laying the shotgun on the table’s edge, in handy reach.

  When the crazy laughter had played itself out, both acknowledged that they were very hungry. When Andy dug the remains of a large pizza from the freezer, it seemed indeed a gift from providence. They began a rapid progress through the find, microwaving one chunk after another.

  After rapidly consuming a slice and a half, Dolly took time out for a question. “If your father wants no cops, what is he going to do? Just forget the whole thing?”

  Andy removed a piece of anchovy from his current slice before taking his next bite. “He won’t just forget it, I’m sure of that. Look, I didn’t tell you this before, but my Dad is—pretty capable at this kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing? You mean where people are getting killed?” Fresh alarm stirred in Dolly’s voice. “What is he? ‘Keogh’ doesn’t sound like a Mafia boss.”

  “No, no, nothing like that. He used to be a Chicago cop, and now he runs this little private agency. He says the most important thing that you and I can do now is to stick together, no matter what.”

  Dolly gulped down some water, the only drink immediately available. “Yeah, I heard some of what your father was saying on the phone. But how did he know about the train tickets?”

  “That I can’t imagine.” Andy made a helpless gesture.

  Dolly wasn’t getting very far trying to come up with answers either, but she kept at it. “All right, so much for your father. How’s your mother doing?”

  “Fine, as far as I know.”

  “Good. Now, working our way through the family, tell me about your Uncle Matt. I’m sorry I had doubts about him. He’s the black sheep of the family, right? The one who comes in and kicks ass when the minor hoodlums don’t follow orders?”